What are some of changes that have occured in publishing in America that have affected writers of color?

What are the changes in the American publishing industry you hope to see occur in the next millenium?

Suheir Hammad
"I really don't know where to begin...What changes have been made in publishing for writers of color in the States? I think that there are more writers of color writing and publishing now more than ever. In the 90's, I think the popularity of memoir and autobiographical writing was definitely an opening up of opportunities for writers of color. Particularly because their stories and their history are not represented in mainstream media. [Not represented] in mainstream, the canon, literature. So, I think the idea of autobiographical memoir writing in poetry and in prose was a big advancement. What I would like to see in the future is more resources available, more opportunities open to all writers. Including writers of color ,[writers] of all persuasions and genders. The gift that we can ask for is; self-determination and voice of people. That writers begin to set their own agendas. Begin to set the context of where their writing is going and what they want write about."

Jessica CareMoore
"What changes, as far as people of color, writers, have been made in the publishing industry? Not enough. I can say though, in the last two years, that I have seen some writers like Ahsia Mandele, Sol Williams, even farther back as four years ago, Edwidge Danticat and Kevin Powell getting some mainstream attention. Being able to break through the barriers, going past it at the grassroots level. Seeing some really grassroots writers, like Ahsia, get major deals like Simon & Schuster. What I have found interesting is that, I think they're late. Which is interesting. It's kinda known that the publishing industry is catching up to what we already know. My personal experience being an independent publisher, publishing Sol Williams. You know, before Sol had a book in print there was nobody asking him to do a book, or to publish one for that matter. Things like television and the internet has helped a lot of young writers maybe catapult their way into mainstream. [Getting their]ideas and thoughts into people's mouths. They have become a more powerful force then in the past. I think we have the opportunity right now to do a lot of things as independent publishers. With independent publishers in general to make some waves in the bookseller industry. recently their was a book Listen Up, an anthology,with myself, Sol Williams, Tish Benson, Carl [Hancock] Rux , that showcased the young poets. What I thought with this book anthology was that it was very under promoted. Unfortunately, I think a good opportunity to make a lot more noise then it did would have been done, more so with this book. I just think they're still afraid of us, the publishing industry. There's a lot of blockades set up so writers like myself can't get into bookstores. It's been a fight for me. I have national distribution, and [I'm] working with the internet, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.com . And now I'm setting up to start Moore Black Press.com. It's become easier. They[the publishing industry] are gonna have to, at some point, offer us a deal or work with us in some way. Because, the money, we're going to be doing well on our own. And they'll wanna get a piece of it. And that's what I've found, distribution companies come when they saw that I was selling books. And so, it's a vicious circle you know. It's a fight. You know, the black poets still are not in the poetry section of major, major chains. We're in the African American literature section. And this has been a big thing for me and Sol. You know fighting to get our books in the poetry section where it's dominated by white men. So, I see this as a struggle. It's also, in the midst of all this hip-hop and everything else influence that we make sure that we maintain our legacy and that we are working to keep some integrity with this art form. I'm hoping that Moore Black Press will be a part of that contribution.

Geoffrey Jacques
Just because your body is imprisoned, doesn't mean your mind isn't free, and even though this thought might be trite, there is some truth in it because we are our minds. In a deeper sense, we are our spirits. Well, I'd say two things, a few things come to mind. First, the significance in 1999 of Clarence Major being a National Book Award Finalist. We'll know this week (today, tomorrow or the next day) whether he wins. As a National Book Award Finalist for Poetry is sort of One thing you kind of hang your, hang any sort of consideration of the status of black writers and writers of color in the country, in the turn of the century.

What I mean by that is, there is a very significant presence of black and other writers of color in the national culture now. And that's something that's a little different from probably in any period, up until the last say 15 years or so. You can see this, sort of, maybe beginning with the popularity of Toni Morrison, especially after Beloved. And in the period since Beloved, there's been this whole sort of thing. I mean, maybe Beloved is not the right place to start. Maybe The Color Purple is.

But the point is that since, for the last 20 years or so in this century, we have this movement of black writers into a kind of different relationship with the mainstream culture than previously. And the result of that is, you know, can be seen a number of ways. One is the amount of books that are published, in a system of a great many books by black authors being published every year. And how many of them are read by people, I don't know the numbers but, you know, the fact that they keep being published is itself somewhat significant.

On the other side of that, however, is and this is sort of the flip side of you know, there's sort of this line that you can draw with Clarence Major as a symbolic sort of center of it. On the one side, there are all these writers being published, but on the other, how many you know, the genres in which they're being published is not as broad I think as one would like. There is, in terms of fiction, probably less sort of theories in literary fiction being published by black writers than, certainly than a lot of people I've talked to over the last few years and desired.

It's hard to tell how much, you know, sort of serious literary fiction's being written by black writers. But the fact is that there just doesn't seem to be as much. For every Clarence Major, Edwidge Danticat or whoever, you know. People like that, you have a whole bunch of people who are interested in, you know, writing very popular, and very popular, and sometimes very shallow work.

So this isn't to say that one shouldn't stop writing. Wishing yet that we want to get rid of the popular work by any means. I mean certainly that kind of drives what I mean, that's a factor and a positive factor in and of itself, but in the sense that of course, black writers and other writers of color should be able to write whatever they want and have it published, and have its quality be judged by readers.

But at the same time, you know, that, what I think is an imbalance, you know, it remains problematic. The other thing that I would say is problematic and really sort of paradoxical. That you have all of these black writers out here, fiction writers and poets, but there are very few publication venues for them to publish in. Very few magazines, very few literary quarterlies that publish black writers. Very few of the mainstream publisher, quarterlies or magazines even welcome, seem to even welcome black writers. And that is itself, you know, very distressing.

So I and I think it's also distressing because it means that people don't really have a place where they can meet. They don't really have a place where they can like, read each other's work. The only places where that takes place is in reading venues, which are fine for meeting, you know sort of neighbors, writers in your community; but it doesn't do well for trying to do, you know, establish and develop a national presence. And speaking particularly about black writers, it doesn't really allow for black writers nationally to develop and establish a national kind of presence people need. Periodicals, they need venues to publish in. And you know, that is something that's sorely missed. I mean, the magazines the intellectual magazines directed at black, the black readership for instance, tend to be exclusively around tend to lean towards critical theory or established writers, or a combination of both. And have, seem to have very few, very little room for, for being able to reflect really the broad spectrum and really diverse and huge community of writers in the black community that exist now. So that's one part of it.

In terms of what needs to be done or what I'd like you know, what would be nice to see in the future, I think sort of comes out of dealing with these, the paradox. I think that we need more We need to figure out ways to strengthen the community of writers in the African-American community in particular. We need ways to figure out We need to figure out ways of bringing more diverse writing to the floor. Experimental writing, writing that is you know, not so much aimed at, you know, commercial considerations. That sort of, sort of seems to be on the edge so to speak. We need to bring that more to the forefront.

And we need to have places where people can discuss and write about books at length. And not the kind of places like some that we have now, where you know, the longest book review you can, you'll read is something that's 300 words. Which you know, is barely enough to say who wrote the book and sort of what are some of its major components. So those are the.... That's my answer.